Opening the doors — the number, the tools, the forms, and what a new practitioner actually needs.
Probably, in one or two places. Here's the twenty-minute audit that finds it — list the jobs, not the tools — and the five overlaps that catch solo practitioners most often.
Yes, and plenty of Canadian practices do. But its servers are in the United States, its billing features are built for US insurance, and its own support pages tell you to take two specific steps. Here's what to check before you sign up.
Pick the area code of the place your clients think of as theirs, not the place you live. If those are the same, the decision takes ten seconds — and here's what to do when they aren't.
You need a separate number. You probably don't need a separate device — unless one of three specific things is true of your work, in which case nothing else will do.
Almost certainly not. Toll-free solved a problem mobile plans already solved, and it introduces three of its own. Here's when it's still the right call, and what to do instead.
Registration, insurance, one records subscription, a domain and mailbox, blocked outbound caller ID, and a directory profile. That's a complete practice — and here's exactly which corners you can cut and which you can't.
Three routes — your mobile carrier, a virtual number service, or a second handset — and the two Canadian complications that catch people who follow American advice.
The questions that earn their place, which ones belong on the form and which belong in the room, and the two a Canadian practice has to add.
Both are Canadian, both price in Canadian dollars, and for most solo therapists either will do the job. The real difference is who each was built for — and there's one thing neither of them does.
Keep the two completely separate — separate phone, separate email, separate records — and solve the one hard problem, which is that prospective clients call during the hours you're unavailable.
Four setups cover almost everyone — a second number on the phone you already carry, a second handset, a carrier second line, or no phone number at all. Here's what each costs, what breaks, and how to choose.
Practising under your own name is the default and costs nothing. Register a name when you want a bank account in it, an identity that outlasts you, or a boundary between your practice and your personal life — and know that changing it later is expensive.
Buy a domain, put a mailbox on it, and use it for everything work-related from day one. Here's why a free address on someone else's domain costs you later, and what to do about the parts of email nobody warns you about.
Yes, if you have one clear community. If you work virtually across a province or several, one number plus a clearly stated service area beats trying to look local everywhere.
Two Canadian options, one large American one, and a real case for using none of them yet. The deciding question isn't features — it's where your records are held and how many appointments you book.
Six things, and most of the software you're being sold isn't among them. Here's the real list, what it costs, and what you can safely put off until you have clients.
Four things, not eight. A part-time caseload changes the maths on every subscription — here's what's worth paying for at two clients a week, and what to defer until the practice is bigger than the software.
Both publish solo pricing in Canadian dollars, and both start cheaper than you'd expect because the entry tier caps your appointments. Here's where the tier boundaries actually fall, and the costs that sit outside the subscription.
Records software usually covers notes, scheduling, billing, forms and often video. It almost never covers a phone line — and its 'messaging' is usually a portal or one-way reminders, not texting.
Five costs are genuinely unavoidable and everything else is elective. Here's the structure of the bill, the numbers practitioners report paying for the software half, and where the money quietly goes.
What a group intake adds to an individual one — the screening conversation, a confidentiality section you cannot promise, and the Canadian rule about what happens to the forms of people who don't get a place.
Eight blocks of fields, in the order they should appear — and the four things a Canadian form needs that an American template will not have.
What the form is, what it is not, where it sits in the record — and the Canadian answer to the awkward question of what happens to it when someone never becomes a client.
Put your fee, your availability and a way to reach you that isn't your personal number. Leave off your home address, your personal cell, and anything you'd have to keep updating. Here's the reasoning, including the spam trade-off nobody warns you about.
Six things, and four of them are sentences rather than software: a greeting, a response time, an emergency line, a consent form, a way to be paid, and somewhere the call gets written down.
For a solo practice the honest answer is usually not a phone system at all — it's a second number. Here's when that's true, when a real system earns its keep, and what your records software will not do for you.
There are eight jobs a solo practice has to cover, and most people cover them with three or four subscriptions. Here's the shape of the stacks practitioners describe, and where they overlap.
The phone, boundaries, missed calls and after-hours.
Five things a greeting has to do, a script you can read aloud, and the two lines most therapists leave out that cause the most trouble later.
You can, and sometimes you have to. But blocking a current client is a clinical act, not an administrative one — here's the sequence that comes first, and what to do if you get to the end of it.
Stop using the phone to arrange a phone call. Offer named times in writing, or a booking link, and let the first exchange happen on a channel neither of you has to be free for.
This is the failure mode of the whole separate-number idea, and it's why some therapists give up and go back to one phone. Here's what actually makes a switch stick, and when not switching is the right call.
Some clients — teenagers especially — are reachable no other way. How to serve that without ending up running your practice from your personal handset.
It can, and no provider can promise otherwise — including an internet-based practice line. Here's why it happens, what you can actually do about it, and when a plain carrier line is the safer choice.
Texting is the thing that forces most therapists onto their own handset, because clinic phone systems don't do it and portals need the client to log in. Here are the options that actually work.
One business day is the working norm most therapists describe. But the number matters less than whether the caller was told what to expect and heard something back immediately.
The warmth comes from what you offer instead, not from softening the sentence. Wording for your greeting, your auto-reply, your consent form and the conversation.
You mostly can't tell from the number, and the signals people trust are wrong. What actually works is making the caller identify themselves in writing.
There is no window in a clinical day for phone calls, and that isn't a scheduling failure. Here is what practitioners actually do instead of answering.
Plenty of therapists do it and don't regret it. What it costs, what it doesn't fix, and the two things to check before you remove it.
Some therapists deliberately don't answer and consider it useful screening. The argument is stronger than vendors admit, and it has one specific failure mode.
Free numbers are conditional, and the usual condition is that you keep making calls out. Here's what triggers a reclaim, what you can do once it's happened, and how to stop it happening again.
You can reduce it, not erase it. Here's the order to work in: find out what's out there, cut off the sources, get the listings removed, and move your practice onto a number that isn't yours.
Nothing stops it completely, and changing your number usually doesn't either. What actually helps is triage, and knowing which of the standard fixes are traps.
The stressor isn't the messages — it's knowing one could arrive. Which setups actually remove that, and which ones only look like they do.
The fear that reading a message creates a duty is why some therapists deliberately don't look. Here is what practitioners actually say, and why 'don't look' is a fragile plan.
Plenty of practitioners dread the phone and still run full practices. Here is what they change, what they refuse to change, and the reframe colleagues will offer you.
Nothing on the market solves this one. Here's the honest state of it, and the handful of habits that make professional-to-professional calls connect more often than they don't.
Calling back a number that left no message is not a neutral admin task. The caller may have used a borrowed or shared phone, and you have no consent to reach them. Here's how practitioners handle it.
No College sets the number — you do, and then you are held to what you said. How to pick one, the four places it has to appear, and why it usually breaks at the therapist's end.
Most therapists don't, and there are clinical reasons as well as practical ones. Here is the case on both sides, and the middle option almost nobody considers.
Therapists split hard on this and both camps have a point. What the objections actually are, when texting is the only channel that works, and how to decide for your own caseload.
It holds for most clients and fails predictably for a few. What the drift looks like, what to do the first time it happens, and the wording that prevents most of it.
Four lines that tell the caller something happened. What goes in it, what stays out, and how to run it without buying anything.
A second number gives the caller separation. It doesn't automatically give you any. Here are the four places the separation leaks, and which options actually close them.
Your number is portable in principle. In practice it depends on the vendor cooperating, and therapists have been burned by exactly that. Here's what to ask before you sign up, and what to do if it happens.
What to do tonight, and the standing arrangement that stops it happening every week. Including the part nobody tells you: replying quickly once resets the expectation permanently.
Treat it as clinical material, not an admin problem. Make the alternative concrete before you narrow the channel — and never simply stop answering, which is the tempting move and the dangerous one.
The commercial cost is smaller than the pitches claim. The cost that actually changes what practitioners do sits at the other end of the line — and it can be answered without you answering the phone.
The most consistent complaint about every product in this category, and the one you can't check on a pricing page. Here's how to test support before you commit, and what to do while your line is down.
The most-reported failure of app-based practice lines, and the one you find out about at a no-show. Here's what causes it, what to check, and when to give up on apps entirely.
Yes, and a lot of therapists already do it by hand. Here's why the send time matters more than the writing time, and the one way this habit can backfire.
Video, measures, EMDR, and what the tools can and cannot do.
The three modalities, the rate range published protocols actually stay inside, and the two problems remote adds that an in-office buzzer set never had — sync and stereo separation.
It is usually a reasonable position, and often not really a refusal. The six reasons behind it, what to do when your platform requires one anyway, and why browser-only is worth selecting for.
There are good free bilateral stimulation tools, and for most Canadian therapists they're the right answer. The thing that catches people out isn't the tool — it's whether your video platform will let you share it.
The protocol doesn't change. What changes is how the stimulus reaches the client, how you keep eyes on their face, and what you both do when the connection drops mid-set.
The most common cost of running bilateral stimulation online is that one of you disappears for the length of the set. Why that matters clinically, and the arrangements that avoid it.
For most Canadian EMDR therapists the right answer is a free stimulation tool beside the video they already have. Here's when that's true, and the two situations where it isn't.
Build the session around the connection rather than hoping. The fallback to agree in advance, the fixes that actually move the needle, and the clinical work you shouldn't attempt on a bad line.
Group work online is a different job with different tooling, not a bigger version of a one-to-one session. What changes, what to look for, and a plain answer about what Rivet does not do.
When to administer a measure live versus before the hour, what the client's screen should and shouldn't show, and the four things to sort out before you send one mid-session.
You can't hand a remote client a buzzer. The four ways practitioners deliver tactile stimulation anyway, what each one costs, and when to just use sound instead.
Connectivity is the constraint everyone names and the one that has changed most. The other five — catchment, dual relationships, crisis resources, registration and isolation — have not.
If your practice software already includes video, use it and stop shopping. Here's the honest read on the other four options and who each one is actually right for.
The first ten minutes have to do the work the building used to do. The five things to establish before the therapy starts, and what to send before the day arrives.
The free plan is genuinely free and genuinely usable — unlimited visits, no time limit on calls. The catch is one feature that sits behind the paid tier and quietly rules out a whole kind of session.
Phone them first, troubleshoot second. The five causes that account for almost all of it, in the order to check them, and the fallback to agree on before it happens.
The five objections practitioners actually raise, which of them hold up, and the honest case on the other side — because the time it saves is real.
Colleges, privacy law and retention, quoted from what they publish.
Yes, and the published standards are unusually direct about it. What is less obvious is what the consent has to cover — here is the wording the Colleges and the privacy commissioner actually use.
Usually yes — and the Colleges that address it say so in plain words. Here is what CRPO, OCSWSSW and the BC psychology standards actually publish, and the practical question of how you get a text into a record at all.
Yes — the fact of the call and what it was about. Ontario's psychotherapy College names telephone calls in its list of what the record contains. What it asks for is a notation, not the audio, and the audio is the decision worth making in advance.
Probably some of it, and that is not automatically a problem. Here is how to find out for a specific product, what the statutes say about cross-border handling, and which parts are worth caring about.
The Ontario commissioner's position is 'where feasible, yes' — and where it is not feasible, there is a documented way to use ordinary email instead. Here is the actual guidance, and the honest case for keeping clinical content out of email entirely.
Between five and sixteen years, depending on your province and your profession — and the privacy statutes set no number at all. Here are the published periods, quoted, with the clock each one starts from.
There is no straight answer because there is no such thing as a compliant app. Compliance is a property of a practice, not a product — and here is the College's own statement saying so.
Usually the honest answer is 'partly, and you would have to ask.' Here is what the statutes actually say about where information may go, and the four questions that get you a real answer from a vendor.
If you practise in Ontario and provide health care, the health statute is the one that governs your client information. The federal act still shows up in two places. Here is the actual division, quoted.
Ontario's health privacy act does not travel, and the answer is not the same shape twice — a solo psychologist is a custodian under the health act in Nova Scotia and is not one in Alberta. Here is which statute governs a private practice province by province, quoted from the regulators themselves.
The retention clock keeps running after the last session, and the records need somewhere to live. Here is what the Colleges publish about notice, transfer, successors and the contingency plan almost nobody has.
It is the document that writes down what a vendor may and may not do with your clients' information — and the one a College reviewer will ask for. Here is what the regulations actually require it to contain.
The record is not a document type — it is everything you created or received about a client in the course of the work, in whatever medium it arrived. Here is what each Ontario College actually publishes, quoted.
Fewer things than the anxiety suggests, and they are concrete. Here are the sections of Ontario's health privacy act that a solo practice touches, quoted from the statute, with what each one asks for.
Contain it, tell the client, and work out whether the regulator needs to hear about it. The Ontario commissioner publishes the steps — here they are, quoted, along with the seven situations that trigger a report.
Eight items, drawn from what the Colleges and the privacy commissioner actually publish. The form is short — what makes it work is that every line describes something you really do.
Less prohibition and more expectation than most practitioners assume — and one Ontario College publishes no messaging standard at all. Here is the wording each regulator actually uses, quoted, so you can read the standard rather than a summary of it.
More people than the marketing implies and fewer than the anxiety suggests. Here is the actual list — carrier, vendor, sub-processors, courts — and what the rules say each of them may do.
Switching numbers, porting, growing, winding down.
Usually not on the line you already have. Products built for solo practitioners are built around one login and one device, and sharing that login is the worst of the available options. Here's what actually works, and what it costs.
The clinical work barely changes. What changes is that your phone becomes a front desk, your records become someone else's records too, and most of the tools you chose as a solo practitioner stop fitting.
Settle whose clients they are, who holds the records, and what happens when they leave — before you advertise the role. The clinical fit is the easy part; the departure is the part nobody plans for.
Long enough that you should not print anything or announce anything until it is done. What decides the length is paperwork accuracy, not the technology — and the clock restarts every time a request is rejected.
A port moves your number to a new provider without changing the number. You ask the new provider, never the old one — and the single most expensive mistake is cancelling the old service first.
Export everything before you cancel anything — access usually ends the day the subscription does. Then move the number, then close the account. Doing it in the other order is how people lose records they are still responsible for.
Build the list first, move everyone in one batch rather than trickling, track who has actually used the new number, and decide what happens to the message history before you switch anything off.
Almost nobody loses a client over a number change. What you lose is a few weeks of stray calls to a dead line — so the whole job is overlap, one clear message, and hunting down every place the old number is written down.
The calendar is the easy part. What stops solo practitioners resting is that the line stays open — so the work is closing it properly, in writing, with dates, before you go.
One short written message, sent once, with the new number, the date it takes over, and a direct instruction to save it. Everything longer than that gets skimmed.
From their side it looks like an unknown number calling — which most people now ignore. The change is almost invisible until it matters, and the fix is that they see your name before they see the number.
Keep the number. Cancelling to save a few months of subscription is how practitioners lose a number that was on every card and listing they own — and it is the one thing about a leave you cannot undo.
Ask the exit questions first, in writing, while you still have leverage — can I take my number, can I take my data, what happens when it breaks. A vendor who won't answer those in writing has answered them.
Most failures are clerical and fixable. A few are not, and no provider can promise otherwise, because none of them control both ends. Here's how to tell which one you're in, and what to do if the number is genuinely gone.
The records outlive the practice, and so does the obligation to make them reachable. So the closing sequence runs: tell clients, transfer care, secure the records, keep a contact route open — and cancel the accounts last.